Dynamics 365 Marketing is now part of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

On September 1, 2023, Microsoft combined Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights into a single product offering called Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. The unified offering consists of two applications:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys, formerly Dynamics 365 Marketing
• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data, formerly the standalone Customer Insights application

Microsoft has invested heavily in Real-Time Marketing capabilities, with an emphasis on using customer data to create more personalized and meaningful engagement experiences. If you're an existing Dynamics 365 Marketing user, becoming familiar with the Real-Time Marketing area can help prepare you for the transition.

What changes for new customers?

New customers purchase the unified Dynamics 365 Customer Insights offering. New environments default to Real-Time Marketing functionality and include Event Management. At the time of this class, Outbound Marketing was not included by default in new environments, although it could be purchased as an attached product.

What changes for existing customers?

For existing customers at the time of this class, the biggest immediate change was the product name. Dynamics 365 Marketing became Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys while retaining the familiar application functionality. Existing customers could continue using their Outbound Marketing capabilities. However, Microsoft was shifting its development investment toward Real-Time Marketing, with new features and innovations being introduced there instead of in Outbound Marketing. Existing contacts, forms, segments, and other assets also remained available during this transition.

Understanding the licensing changes

Dynamics 365 Marketing and the previous standalone Dynamics 365 Customer Insights product moved under a single product SKU, while the unified offering continued to provide two separate applications: Customer Insights – Journeys and Customer Insights – Data. At the time this class was recorded, Microsoft stated that existing standalone Dynamics 365 Marketing or Customer Insights customers could renew their existing licensing for one contractual cycle before moving to the combined Customer Insights licensing, provided that renewal was contracted before September 1, 2024. The pricing discussed in this class reflected Microsoft's pricing at the time of the 2023 transition. The Dynamics 365 Marketing base application had previously started at $1,500 per tenant per month, while the Marketing Attach license started at $750 per tenant per month for organizations with a qualifying Dynamics 365 application. The new pricing discussed in the class was $1,700 and $1,000 per tenant per month, respectively.

What happens to Outbound Marketing?

Outbound Marketing remained available to existing customers, but Microsoft was moving future feature development toward Real-Time Marketing. For organizations already using both Outbound and Real-Time Marketing, the transition was intended to be relatively intuitive. Familiar activities continued to include:

• Updating contacts
• Creating customer journeys
• Building marketing emails
• Working with marketing content
• Using customer data and insights to guide engagement

The biggest shift was toward Real-Time Marketing as the primary experience for new capabilities.

Understanding People Interacted

As part of the Customer Insights licensing model, Microsoft introduced the term "People Interacted," which was a rebranding of the marketable contact meter used by Dynamics 365 Marketing. An interacted person can be a Dataverse entity, such as a contact, lead, account, or Insights profile, that interacts with your marketing efforts. Those interactions can take place through channels such as:

• Email
• SMS
• Push notifications
• Azure Communication Services
• Third-party systems integrated with Customer Insights – Journeys

For example, someone who submits a form on a marketing website may count as an interacted person.

How Dataverse fits into the experience

Dataverse is the underlying data platform that supports Dynamics 365 CRM and Power Platform applications. Because these applications can work with the same underlying data, information can remain connected across your business applications. For example, updating a contact in Dynamics 365 Sales can make that updated information available to other applications using the same Dataverse data. This shared foundation supports the increasingly connected approach behind Customer Insights.

Understanding People Unified

"People Unified" referred to the profile meter from the previous standalone Dynamics 365 Customer Insights application. A profile represents a uniquely recognized individual created from information collected across defined data sources. These customer profiles are primarily associated with Customer Insights – Data. At the time of this class, the base tenant capacity included:

• 10,000 People Interacted
• 100,000 People Unified

Additional capacity could be purchased separately depending on an organization's needs.

A/B testing in Real-Time Marketing

A/B testing works differently in Real-Time Marketing. Instead of testing individual emails directly, testing shifts to the journey level and operates as a split within the customer journey. A/B tests can be used with both trigger-based and segment-based journeys. In a trigger-based journey, you might send different versions of your content to determine which version performs more effectively. In a segment-based journey, you can test different audience groups and decide whether to include a control group. If you do not use a control group, the system can split the audience between the different versions. This keeps experimentation available while integrating testing more closely with the overall customer journey.

What else should you know about Real-Time Marketing?

Microsoft's direction with Real-Time Marketing centers on using data to create more personalized customer experiences. That includes continued investment in areas such as:

• Copilot and AI capabilities
• Integration between sales, marketing, and customer service
• Segmentation
• Triggers
• Lead scoring
• Marketing forms
• Consent and compliance
• Customer insights

The overall goal is to provide more connected processes and greater control over how organizations engage with customers.

Preparing for the transition

If you've primarily worked in Outbound Marketing, start becoming familiar with Real-Time Marketing and Customer Insights – Journeys. Many of the core activities remain recognizable, but Microsoft's product direction increasingly centers on Real-Time capabilities and closer integration between customer data and engagement tools. Becoming comfortable with those features can help make the transition from the traditional Dynamics 365 Marketing experience to Customer Insights – Journeys easier.